1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates generally to methods and apparatus for conducting retail sales and, more particularly, to methods and apparatus for payment for retail purchases by consumers enrolled in payment and/or loyalty programs offered by a retailer.
2. Background of the Invention
The retail industry has shown increasing interest in improving the convenience of the shopping experience. For example, the use of loyalty cards have enabled merchants to reward customers based upon their patronage of the merchant. Loyalty cards have also enabled merchants to provide customers with a variety of other incentives and/or conveniences such as check cashing privileges. Furthermore, the use of loyalty cards have become quite popular with cost conscious shoppers since merchants typically provide discounts on the goods being purchased whenever the shopper presents a loyalty card issued by that merchant. Merchants have attempted to minimize the inconvenience to shoppers which results from requiring the shopper to present a loyalty card in order to receive discounts on goods and/or other benefits. For example, some merchants have issued small tokens that attach to a customer's key ring and, have imprinted thereon, a scannable code for identifying the shopper as a participant in the retailer's loyalty program.
Efforts to improve customer convenience have also focused on speeding transactions at the point-of-sale (POS) to minimize the amount of time that a customer waits in line. The widespread adoption of bar code scanners is one result of such efforts. More recently, merchants have begun exploring the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags in order to quickly inventory the goods in a customer's shopping cart prior to arrival of the customer at the POS. By doing so, the purchase price of the goods is transferred to the POS, thereby eliminating the need for the cashier to scan the goods themselves. Likewise, merchants have explored other methods of employing RFID tags to speed payments. For example, key fobs have been employed to complete purchases of gasoline. Similarly, mountable tags have been employed to both complete purchases of gasoline and pay for a variety of charges associated with usages of toll roads, parking facilities and the like. Other methods for speeding payments have also been explored. For example, personal electronics-based systems such as mobile telephones and biometric based-systems that rely on a unique body feature such as a thumb or retina have been employed in a variety of payment scenarios.
Drawbacks of such loyalty and payment systems include the requirement that a consumer must carry a physical device such as a card, RFID tag or mobile telephone or consent to a biometric scan, a process disliked by many. Thus, ongoing needs exist for the development for methods for improving the convenience of a customer's shopping experience, especially in the areas of improved transaction speed, enhanced loyalty programs, and combinations thereof. The present application addresses such ongoing needs, particularly a need for payment and/or loyalty programs that do not require presentation of a physical device or consent to a biometric scan in order to process a payment and/or issue cash rewards or other benefits based upon usage of the loyalty program.